Electron No Longer a Fundamental Particle ?

Amazing news: Researchers in Switzerland have separated an Electron into two smaller quasi-particles – a “Spinon” and an “Orbiton;” meaning they have physically separated the spin and the orbit properties of an Electron.

Until now, standard physics generally accepted that an Electron was a fundamental particle – that it was not made of smaller components.

However, as early as 1980 theorists had predicted an electron could be made of three smaller pieces: A “Spinon” (providing spin), an “Orbiton” (providing the orbit) and a “Holon” (carrying the charge).

This year Swiss and German researchers1 led by experimenter Thorsten Schmitt fired a tightly focused X-ray beam at a copper-oxide compound called “strontium cuprate,” special because particles in it can only move in one-dimension, one degree of freedom – forward or backwards.

They observed an electron split into two of the three predicted parts – a Spinon and an Orbitron.

Of course the electron is made up of something else; everything is!
Naively wondering recently which ‘part’ interacts with photons etc….
Probably curled up energy paves (Particle-waves as we have no nearer human concept)
Shunyata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81) will no doubt prevail.

Numbers are the Supreme Court of science. However Godel proved that we may not prove everything using numbers. Physics needs numbers. There must be Physics Foibles. Always more to prove. Is physics diverging?

This is excellent news, I’ve been recently considering the idea the electrons are not fundamental particles, it explains the double slit experiment, electrons do not appear in two places at once or for that matter teleport from one place to another. What could be occurring is the electron loosing enough mass to be a measurable negative charge and at the same time a different electron gaining enough mass to show a measurable charge. Surely the acknowledgement of entropic effects to energy in a closed system should have destroyed any possibility of an electron being a fundamental particle.

Particles and subatomic particles can be coherently structured in only three possible ways.

One type has a higher number of left hand rotations and this is what we call negatively charged particle.
The other type has a higher number of right hand rotations and this is what we call positively charged particle.
The third kind is formed from an equal number of left handed and right handed charges and this is what we call a neutral particle.
Properties of atoms, particles and subatomic particles are defined by the number of these charges, their orientations and how they are structured to form a coherent object. The transfer of energy among these charges in their orbits is resonant and instantaneous. More importantly, the force that governs these charges, which is also permanently present in them, is the only absolute physical reality and everything else is only an appearance and manifestation of the magnetic structure of matter (MSM).

According to QFT (Editor: Quantum Field Theory) this is not fragmenting the electron, it is a mode of decay where the electron field ripple is branched into three components in a very special situation.

“The splitting of the electron in seemingly different parts is not real,
but a combined effect of all electrons in the solid.

[Regarding] the role and properties of electrons in solids.
Let me start with the concept of the *effective* electron mass:
in a solid the mass of the electron can strongly deviate from that of a free electron (i.e., in vacuum).

As you may know, according to quantum mechanics an electron is actually a matter wave, which in vacuum can propagate freely,

but in a solid gets scattered off the regular lattice of positively charged ions,
similarly to light getting diffracted off an optical grating.

The effective mass, which is essentially the inverse second derivative of the dispersion relation and describes the “inertness” of the electron against external fields or forces in the presence of the crystal lattice,
thus generally deviates from that of a free electron. We call this effect mass renormalization.

It may range from 1/10 of a free electron mass (m0) in typical semiconductors (e.g., GaAs) to 1000 x m0 in so-called heavy fermion compounds.

The next important thing to know is that the many electrons in a solid
may cooperate in such a way that their collective behavior
can be described by the emergence of a new (quasi)particle.

A famous example is the notion of a “hole” (or defect electron) in p-doped semiconductors.

Such materials behave as if positively charged particles
move through the solid and carry a current.

What really happens is the following: without any doping the semiconductor is electrically neutral and strongly insulating. If you take one electron out of the valence band (by doping) the remaining N-1 electrons, when viewed against the positive background charge of all ions, conspire in such a way as if a positive charge would move in the opposite direction.

It´s like a bubble in a glass of champagne:
it´s not so much the air in the bubble that moves, but rather the water (or champagne) around it that makes it look [as though it is moving].

The splitting of an electron into orbitons and spinons in a 1D solid is a very similar phenomenon,
where the strong Coulomb interaction between the charged electrons leads to a highly correlated quantum mechanical state of all conduction electrons in the solid, which *looks* as if the spin and orbital degrees of freedom move separately with different velocities.

It is not really a splitting of a single individual electron,
but an emergent effect resulting from the cooperation of all electrons.
Such effects occur frequently in materials with 3d or 4f electrons,
where the interelectronic Coulomb interaction is particularly important,
and constitute a fascinating research field, both from the viewpoint of fundamental physics as well as for potential applications in future microelectronics.”

You are quite correct NoBody. For for every particle divided, there must be smaller and smaller particles until there is nothing.

Mankind has a finite intellect which implies limited ability to comprehend. Every thing we interpret from our environment are sensory inputs through the nervous systems which end up in a “brain” which interprets our solid world. This occurs somewhere within the darkness of the skull. From birth, humans interpret the solid world by inputs from sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

Another paradigm… our solid world is a perception in a existence of nothing more or less than an exponentially greater holographic existence than man can devise. There is no universe